Warren Sapp thinks shoulder surgery led to Ndamukong Suh's decline

4:40 PM, January 31, 2012

Warren Sapp / AP

Detroit Free Press Sports Writer

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INDIANAPOLIS -- Warren Sapp had surgery on both of his shoulders during his soon-to-be Hall of Fame playing career, zapping Sapp of power he never recovered.

The current NFL Network analyst and former All-Pro defensive tackle said he thinks Ndamukong Suh’s own 2011 shoulder procedure is one of a handful of reasons his play slipped this fall.

“The thing that I think I affected him was he played such a power game, grabbing people, slinging them out of the way,” Sapp said during a break at Super Bowl XLVI media day today. “He had rotator cuff surgery. I had one on each shoulder, I kind of know what that’s like.”

Suh had a monster rookie season with 10 sacks and 66 tackles, being named All-Pro and winning Rookie of the Year.

But he underwent right shoulder surgery last January, didn’t have the benefit of a supervised off-season program because of the NFL lockout and saw a decline in production across the board (just four sacks and 36 tackles this year).

Lions coach Jim Schwartz regularly defended Suh’s play during the season, and general manager Martin Mayhew said earlier this month Suh “played pretty solid” and “very consistently” all year.

But Sapp said “from his first year to his second year, (Suh looked like) he hadn’t worked on anything.”

“He’s never been a hip-flipper or a true pass rusher,” Sapp said. “He was just overpowering, throwing people out of the way. And on this level, everybody’s that strong, so that’s what you saw was him with his shoulder, and people just understanding he was just going to go through them. That’s the way he rushes, he goes through you. So only thing I’ve got to do (as an offensive lineman) is get myself a nice little base and be ready to go.”

Michael Lombardi, an NFL Network analyst and former league executive who worked with Schwartz in Cleveland, said Suh “got away from what he does best (which) is power, which is being physically dominating at the line of scrimmage.”

“He started to try to be an edge player,” Lombardi said. “It’s like a baseball pitcher who tries to throw curveballs when he’s a fastball pitcher. So I think the best thing that happened to him was they’re going to sit in a room with him this off-season, and they’re going to watch tape of him, and they’re going to say, ‘Hey, this is what you did last year; this is what you did as a rookie.’ As a rookie, his power was unique. Last year, it wasn’t.”

Beyond the shoulder surgery, Sapp and others were critical of how Suh handled -- and is still dealing with -- the fallout from his Thanksgiving Day stomp of Green Bay Packers offensive lineman Evan Dietrich-Smith.

Suh was suspended two games for stepping on Dietrich-Smith’s right arm, but after the game, he insisted the stomp wasn’t intentional and lashed out at the media for labeling him a dirty player.

“Until he’s going to be honest with himself, he’s going to have a long career or whatever he wants to call what he’s doing now,” Sapp said. “How’s he still standing there talking about he was stepping away from this man? In what universe does he live in? I don’t get it.”

Since the end of the season, Suh has gone on a national media tour in an attempt to repair his image. He appeared on pregame and halftime shows during CBS’s coverage of the AFC playoffs, he made a late-night appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and he did a sit-down with Hannah Storm that is scheduled to air tonight on ESPN.

In that interview, Suh said talk of him needing anger management is “funny to me” and added he would never try and hurt someone on the field.

“Contrary to some perception, this is a very intelligent player that has a certain maturity about him beyond his years that got thrown in a situation that I hope he looks back in hindsight, separates himself from the people that are handling him and understands, no, this is not the way to handle it,” Fox and NFL Network analyst Brian Billick said. “I think the response, even today that I saw in the recent interview, shows a lack of understanding that you need to handle this better. You have the maturity to do it. To still hold to the stomp as being, ‘I’m a victim of my circumstance.’ No, you lost your cool. Admit to it, recognize it, take the blinders off and move past it, and you’re going to be fine.”

Sapp said one thing that shouldn’t be an excuse for Suh’s decline is his off-field interests.

Suh spent time last off-season in Europe for a car rally and made other promotional appearances across the country, but he said he worked out every step of the way.

“You have to self-evaluate in this game,” Sapp said. “You have to look at yourself and say, 'Where can I get better?' And what I knew I needed to get better at my strength and my conditioning and then also my pass rush, so I went in the off-season (after my rookie year) and worked on nothing but my pass rush and speed and run and just go at it. You’ve got to grind at the job. This is your profession. There’s nothing else. Subway will work around your schedule, I guarantee you.”